Frontiers of Materials Research:

A Decadal Survey*

*This is the fourth materials research decadal since 1989.

Download this report and previous decadal surveys at nap.edu

NATIONAL MATERIALS AND MANUFACTURING BOARD

BOARD ON PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

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Frontiers of Materials Research:

A Decadal Survey

Co-Chairs:

LAURA H. GREENE, NAS, National High Magnetic Field

Laboratory and Florida State University

TOM LUBENSKY, NAS, University of Pennsylvania

MATTHEW TIRRELL, NAE, University of Chicago and Argonne

National Laboratory

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PAUL CHAIKIN, NAS, New York University

HONG DING, Beijing National Laboratory

KATHERINE FABER, California Institute of

Technology

PAULA HAMMOND, NAE/NAM, Massachusetts

Institute of Technology

CHRISTINE HECKLE, Corning Inc.

KEVIN HEMKER, Johns Hopkins University

JOSEPH HEREMANS, NAE, Ohio State University

BARBARA JONES, IBM

NADYA MASON, University of Illinois Urbana-

Champaign

THOMAS MASON, Battelle Memorial Institute

TALAT SHAHNAZ RAHMAN, University of Central

Florida

ELSA REICHMANIS, NAE, Georgia Institute of

Technology

JOHN SARRAO, Los Alamos National Laboratory

SUSAN SINNOTT, Pennsylvania State University

SUSANNE STEMMER, UC, Santa Barbara

SAMUEL STUPP, NAE, Northwestern University

TIA BENSON TOLLE, Boeing

MARK WEAVER, University of Alabama

TODD YOUNKIN, Intel Assignee at SRC

STEVEN ZINKLE, NAE, University of Tennessee

COMMITTEE ON FRONTIERS OF MATERIALS RESEARCH:

A DECADAL SURVEY

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Charge to:

COMMITTEE ON FRONTIERS OF MATERIALS RESEARCH:

A DECADAL SURVEY

• Assess the progress and achievements in MR over the past decade;

• Identify the principal changes in the research and development landscape for MR in the

United States and internationally over the past decade, and how those changes have

impacted MR;

• Identify MR areas that offer promising investment opportunities and new directions for the

period 2020-2030 or have major scientific gaps;

• Identify fields in MR that may be good candidates for transition to support by other

disciplines, applied R&D sponsors, or industry;

• Identify the impacts that MR has had and is expected to have on emerging technologies,

national needs, and science, broadly;

• Identify challenges that MR may face over the next decade and offer guidance to the

materials research community for addressing those challenges; and

• Evaluate recent trends in investments in MR in the United States relative to similar research

that is taking place internationally by using a limited number of case studies of

representative areas of MR that have either experienced significant recent growth or are

anticipated to see significant near-term growth. Based on those trends, recommend steps

the United States might take to either secure leadership or to enhance collaboration and

coordination of such research support, where appropriate, for identified subfields of MR.

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Frontiers of Materials Research:

A Decadal Survey

• The Committee met five times as a whole, with many additional

teleconferences, among the leadership, the entire committee, and

subsets of the committee.

• The Committee received input from more than 40 guest speakers and

panelists at its meetings, who added to the members’ understanding

of the frontiers of materials research.

• This was a two year intense effort by 24 Committee Members.

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General Observations

• Materials Science and Materials Engineering are both

vast enterprises encompassing many diverse

intellectual communities with different priorities

• Together they are really colossal, stretching from

frontiers of fundamental science (topological matter,

non-equilibrium processes) to industrial-scale

manufacturing (additive manufacturing, Gorilla glass)

• It was a challenge to provide a full description of

accomplishments and future prospects with an

excitement in dealing with the diversity of opinions,

backgrounds, and priorities.

• This 2019 Decadal Survey in Materials Research is

truly a Consensus Report.

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From Executive Summary:

“The statement of task was extremely broad, and the

committee could not cover every aspect of MR, from

the most fundamental to the most disruptive

manufacturing, without leaving important and even

crucial areas of MR out of the report, or providing only

brief mention. This does not indicate that the

committee felt these areas were less important or

crucial.”

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FRONTIERS OF MATERIALS RESEARCH: A DECADAL SURVEY

Chapters of the Report

• CHAPTER 1. LANDSCAPE AND IMPACT OVER THE PAST 10 YEARS:

SETTING THE SCENE

• CHAPTER 2: PROGRESS AND ACHIEVEMENTS IN MATERIALS RESEARCH

OVER THE PAST DECADE

• CHAPTER 3. MATERIALS RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES

• CHAPTER 4. RESEARCH TOOLS, METHODS, INFRASTRUCTURE, AND

FACILITIES

• CHAPTER 5. NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS

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Text from Chapter 1

concerning the past decade

“By studying earlier decades and reading the

reports that were produced, researchers know to

expect the unexpected, which is precisely the

allure of science. There have been surprises, to be

sure, in the last decade. It is useful to examine a

few examples of important developments that

were not foreseen.”

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Graphene and topological insulators

“For example, … graphene … was given scant mention in the previous decadal survey in 2010. Since then, graphene has spawned an exciting field of other two-dimensional (2D) materials, and perhaps more importantly, it has instigated work on new physical phenomena, with potential utility in many electronics applications such as solar cells, transistors, transistors, camera sensors, digital screens, and semiconductors.”

Vitrimers and polymers with dynamic covalent bonds

“Self-healing of polymers realized a new paradigm with the development of polymers with dynamically reconfigurable covalent bonds. One example, a remarkable new class of plastics now known as vitrimers (a term for glass-like polymers), was unanticipated 10 years ago. Vitrimers exhibit properties similar to silica glasses but in which the covalent bond network topology can be rearranged by exchange reactions without depolymerization. They remain insoluble and yet processable as bulk materials.”

Gorilla Glass

“Smartphone touch screen technology, which made its appearance at the beginning of the last decade, created entirely new roles for glass. This glass serves three functions: it enables user input, protects the display beneath it, and transmits the information on the display to the user even after years of use, in addition to resisting breakage owing to accidental drops. The material has to be mechanically durable, scratch resistant, thin, stiff, dimensionally stable, flat, smooth, impermeable to water, and transparent to both visible light and radio waves. Corning was able to surmount all of these challenges in a very short time through application of deep understanding of glass composition and manufacturing technology.”

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Text from Chapter 1

concerning the past decade

“ … some important developments were the product of pure

discovery-driven science (topological insulators), while

others were concerted technological efforts (Gorilla Glass),

and still others some combination of the two (vitrimers).

This is a strong argument for supporting materials research

across a span of technology readiness levels, and for

creating environments in which basic and applied research,

as well as academic and industrial research, interact

intimately.”

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• Key Finding: Basic research in fundamental science directions

meaning work that neither anticipates nor seeks a specific outcome,

is the deep well that both satisfies our need to understand our

universe and feeds the technological advances that drive the modern

world. It lays the groundwork for future advances in materials

science as in other fields of science and technology. Discoveries

without immediate obvious application often represent great

technical challenges for further development (e.g., high-Tc

superconductivity, carbon nanotubes) but can also lead to very

important advances, often years in the future.

• Key Recommendation: It is critically important that fundamental

research remains a central component of the funding portfolio of

government agencies that support materials research. Paradigm-

changing advances often come from unexpected lines of work.

Key Findings and Recommendations

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Chapter 1

Key Findings and Recommendations

• Key Finding: The integrated computational materials science and

materials engineering methodology has had a significant impact on

product development in specific industries, as the committee has

learned through industrial input. There is potential for further

impact through the inclusion of integrated data sciences into the

materials research for all length scales and material types.

• Key Recommendation: All government agencies funding materials

research should encourage the use, when appropriate, of

computational methods, data analytics, machine learning, and deep

learning in the research they fund. They should also encourage

universities to provide students of science and engineering exposure

to these new methods by 2022.

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ILLUSTRATIVE RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES

• Key Finding: Quantum materials science and engineering, which can include

superconductors, semiconductors, magnets, and two-dimensional and topological

materials, represents a vibrant area of fundamental research. New understanding and

advances in materials science hold the promise of enabling transformational future

applications, in computing, data storage, communications, sensing, and other

emerging areas of technology. This includes new computing directions outside Moore’s

law, such as quantum computing and neuromorphic computing, critical for low-energy

alternatives to traditional processors. Two of the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s

“10 big ideas” specifically identify support of quantum materials (see The Quantum

Leap: Leading the Next Quantum Revolution and Midscale Research Infrastructure).

• Key Recommendation: Significant investments by, and partnerships among, NSF, DOE,

NIST, DOD, and IARPA will accelerate progress in quantum materials science and

engineering, so crucial to the future economy and homeland security. U.S. agencies

with a stake in advanced computing, under the possible leadership of DOE’s Office of

Science and NNSA laboratories and the DOD research laboratories (ARL, ONR, AFRL),

should undertake to support new initiatives to study the basic materials science of

new computing paradigms during the next decade. To remain internationally

competitive, the U.S. materials research community must continue to grow and

expand in these areas.

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DEMAND FROM THE ULTIMATE APPLICATIONS

• Key Finding: Materials science and technology has an enormous

impact on the quality and sustainability of Earth’s environment

across the entire spectrum of materials types. This is another

important opportunity for university, national laboratory, and

industry cooperation.

• Key Recommendation: Research in numerous directions that

improve sustainable manufacturing of materials, including choices of

feedstocks, energy efficiency, recyclability, and more, is urgently

needed. Creative approaches for funding materials research toward

sustainability goals should be developed by NSF, DOE, and other

agencies.

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Chapter 3

Findings and Recommendations

• Finding: Sustainability and environmental impact have special

import in the domain of polymer materials research owing to the

dual factors of the massive accumulation of discarded polymeric

materials in the environment and the unique challenges to polymer

recyclability.

• Recommendation: The massive accumulation of discarded polymeric

materials points to several needed actions, namely, stimulating and

executing further research on environmental degradability of

polymers, better methods of separating incompatible polymers out

of waste streams, research toward recycling without separation, and

fundamental research in green chemistry possibilities within polymer

research.

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DEMAND FROM THE ULTIMATE APPLICATIONS

• Key Finding: Many of the real-world challenges and opportunities in

materials research occur at the intersections among traditional disciplines,

and at the interfaces between fundamental and applied research. Pure

science often benefits from proximity to applied research. Collaboration and

information transfer among different disciplines and among academia,

industry, and government laboratories greatly increases the likelihood of

successfully meeting these challenges and capitalizing on these

opportunities.

• Key Recommendation: Government agencies, led by the Office of Science

and Technology Policy (OSTP), should work with high priority to foster

communication among materials research stakeholders through the support

of interdisciplinary research and the development of modalities for freer

flowing interactions among universities, private enterprise (including start-

up ventures), and national laboratories.

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INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS• Key Finding: Infrastructure at all levels, from midscale instrumentation for materials

characterization, synthesis, and processing with purchase costs of $4 million to $100

million in universities and national laboratories to large-scale research centers like

synchrotron light sources, free electron lasers, neutron scattering sources, high field

magnets, and superconductors is essential for the health of the U.S. materials science

enterprise. Midscale infrastructure, in particular, has been sorely neglected in recent

years, and the cost of maintenance and dedicated technical staff has increased

enormously.

• Key Recommendation: All U.S. government agencies with interests in materials

research should implement a national strategy to ensure that university research

groups and national laboratories have local access to develop, and continuing support

for use of, state-of-the-art midscale instruments and laboratory infrastructure

essential for the advancement of materials research. This infrastructure includes

materials growth and synthesis facilities, helium liquefiers and recovery systems,

cryogen-free cooling systems, and advanced measurement instruments. The agencies

should also continue support of large facilities such as those at Oak Ridge National

Laboratory (ORNL), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Argonne National

Laboratory (ANL), Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), National Synchrotron

Light Source II (NSLS-II), and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)—

and engage and invest in long-range planning for upgrades and replacements for

existing facilities.

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INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS

• Key Finding: Progress in three-dimensional (3D) characterization,

computational materials science, and advanced manufacturing and

processing have enabled an increasing digitization across disciplines of

materials research and has in some cases dramatically accelerated and

compressed the time from discovery to inclusion in new products.

• Key Recommendation: Federal agencies (including NSF and DOE) with

missions aligned with the advancement of additive manufacturing and other

modes of digitally controlled manufacturing should by 2020 expand

investments in materials research for automated materials manufacturing.

The increased investments should be across the multiple disciplines that

support automated materials synthesis and manufacturing. These range from

the most fundamental research to product realization, including

experimental and modeling capabilities enabled by advances in computing,

to achieve the aim that by 2030 the United States is the leader in the field.

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INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS

• Key Finding: The Materials Genome Initiative, and the earlier Integrated

Computational Materials Engineering approach, recognized the potential of

integrating and coordinating computational methods, informatics, materials

characterization, and synthesis and processing methods to accelerate the

discovery and deployment of designer materials in products. The translation

of these methodologies to specific industries has resulted in numerous

successful applications that have reduced the development time with

corresponding cost savings.

• Key Recommendation: The U.S. government, with NSF, DOD, and DOE

coordinating, should support the quest to develop new computational and

advanced data-analytic methods, invent new experimental tools to probe

the properties of materials, and design novel synthesis and processing

methods. The effort should be accelerated from today’s levels through

judicious agency investments and continue over the next decade in order to

sustain U.S. competitiveness.

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Chap 5 – National Competitiveness

• The creation and control of materials is critical to any advanced

economy – prediction of importance to GDP

• America dominated materials science and engineering for most of

the post-war period, but it no longer does

• Other countries, the European Union, Japan, Korea, and

particularly, the emerging giant China now threaten our leadership.

• They are investing heavily in state-of-the-art facilities like

synchrotrons, centers for neutron scattering, etc.

• They have centralized industrial policies designed to improve

their economic competiveness, and they often tailor research

support with this goal in mind.

This subject is complex, and though part of our charge, it presents

issues (e.g. economic and geopolitical) that involve more than

science and engineering and that are beyond the expertise of the

committee. It deserves further study.

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How Should US Respond

• Strong and sustained support for fundamental and applied

research is essential; includes development and

maintenance of research infrastructure – important for both

fundamental research and product development – e.g.

neutron scattering

• Nurture international collaboration

• But an environment that brings new technology to the

market place is also needed.

• In the global economy, enterprises get the technology they

need wherever it is – example of GE’s additive

manufacturing. How important is local production? Transfer

of US technological innovation to foreign production?

• iMac and no screws (NY Times, Jan. 29, 2019)

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NATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS

• Key Finding: Intense competition among developed and developing

nations for leadership in the modern economic drivers, including

smart manufacturing and materials science, will grow over the

coming decade.

• Recommendation: The U.S. government, with input from all

agencies supporting materials research, should take coordinated

steps beginning in 2020 to fully assess the threat of increased

worldwide competition to its leadership in materials science and in

advanced and smart manufacturing. The assessment program, which

should be established on a permanent basis, should also define a

strategy by 2022 to combat this threat.

• Recommendation: The U.S. government should fund and pursue a

strategy-based permanent program of robust investment focused on

materials science and smart manufacturing that will allow us to

maintain our position as a world leader in materials science and not

to fall behind our many competitors.

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Finding: International scientific collaboration and science diplomacy is

vital to U.S. success in fundamental and applied materials research. In

some cases, scientists are forbidden to travel between countries. While

many U.S. researchers understand how to protect sensitive material, with

the increasing prevalence of cyber espionage, this understanding needs to

be updated.

Recommendation: In order to maintain international collaborations, the

United States must allocate funds to develop methods to educate our

researchers on how to be vigilant in maintaining security both while

traveling abroad and when welcoming international colleagues to the

United States. Such education would also be crucial for maintaining

industrial security within the United States.

Findings/Recommendations

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Case Studies

• Flat Panel Liquid Crystal Displays

• Additive Manufacturing in Aerospace

• Permanent Magnets

• Photovoltaics

• Lithium Ion Batteries

These studies illustrate the international nature of

discovery, of industrial search for new materials, and the

unpredictable paths of ideas to profitable products.

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Recent Advances in MR

Exciting times for MR: Paradigm-changing advances in MR

have accelerated the pace of discovery

• Computational Science: new algorithms, AI and machine

learning, Big Data

• New tools: materials characterization, synthesis and

processing, computational modelling

• New materials: 2D, vitrimers, high-entropy alloys,

metamaterials

• New Theory: Topological insulators, quantum computing

Recent past has been a good time (many committee

members say it has been the best time) for MR. Future

possibilities looks even brighter.

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Questions?

Download the full report

nap.edu/25244